Northwood-Pleasant City
Northwood
The Northwood/Pleasant City area is located in the northeast corner of West Palm Beach and consists of 14 residential neighborhoods surrounding a historic business district known as the Northwood Village.
With its own “Main Street”, the district is home to unique restaurants, quant antique shops and specialty boutiques. Comprised of new and historic homes, the area is rich with cultural history, enjoys neighborhood parks, is just a mile north of downtown West Palm Beach, and is only a short walk to the Intracoastal Waterway. The residents who call Northwood/Pleasant City home are a diverse mixture of people and cultures from around the world that gives the community its unique flavor.
Neighborhood Renaissance has made great strides to increase and preserve workforce housing that is affordable for area residents. We have undertaken comprehensive neighborhood improvements that benefit the overall Northwood community.
To these ends, we continue our work in the Northwood area through the following programs:
- Community Land Trust
- Lease-Purchase Housing Program
- Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2
- Village Centre
The progress made in Northwood-Pleasant City would not have been possible without the continued support of our dedicated partner:
Stabilizing Northwood
Bank foreclosures have destabilized the Northwood/Pleasant City community. In response to this crisis and the contraction of the lending market, we developed a neighborhood stabilization strategy that includes our Lease-to-Purchase Program, which provides future homeowners the opportunity to rent the home they will eventually purchase at an affordable payment while they receive credit and budget counseling and save for a down payment.
We are identifying foreclosed homes that are currently vacant and blighting the neighborhood and which are suitable for rehabilitation as workforce housing. Additionally, we are targeting the acquisition/rehab of at risk multi-family structures to increase the amount of permanently affordable rental housing.
To further address the impact of bank foreclosures and to stabilize and position the Northwood area for resurgence we assembled a consortium of nonprofit and for-profit partners who submitted a $16.75 million funding application to HUD. If awarded, we plan to use NSP2 funds toward the construction of a catalyst mixed-use residential and retail anchor project in the heart of the Northwood Village business district that will spur future redevelopment and create jobs. Funds will also be used to reclaim the growing number of vacant and foreclosed properties that blight the neighborhoods. The rehabilitated homes will be offered for owner-occupancy and rental to the area’s low and moderate- income workforce.
The fellow members of our consortium are:
• Seawood Builders
• Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Palm Beach and Treasure Coast
• HBR Developers, LLC
• Housing Partnership, Inc.
For additional information regarding our application please refer to the following public notice and program plan:
PUBLIC NOTICE: Neighborhood Renaissance, Inc., Lead Applicant, NEIGHBORHOOD STABILIZATION PROGRAM 2 (NSP2)
Land Trust
Neighborhood Renaissance established its Community Land Trust (CLT) in 2005 with a grant from the Community Foundation of Palm Beach and Martin Counties. This initiative was undertaken to provide affordable ownership opportunities for Northwood/ Pleasant City low and moderate-income residents who were being displaced by the surge in housing prices. We also saw this as an opportunity to permanently secure the financial investments made to revitalize the area for the benefit of future generations.
A CLT separates the ownership of the home from the underlying land and retains title to the land. This results in a lower purchase price because the cost of the land is deducted from the sales price. The legal structure for a CLT is very similar to those used for condominium and town home communities. The rights of both parties are secured with a 99-year renewable ground lease that is filed at the County. Included in the document are restrictions that prohibit the CLT from selling the land under any home to a third party and it sets the allowable increases in the monthly land lease fee, including how often they may occur.
Today, our CLT has 13 homes that are permanently affordable for the area’s workforce. In the event of resale, these homes will only be sold to income qualified first-time homebuyers. We are currently looking for opportunities to expand the number of homes in our CLT. We want to preserve additional affordable homes for future homebuyers and to continue to stabilize the Northwood area.
For more information about the CLT, please contact Christina Hewitt, Housing Manager at (561) 832-6776, ext. 104.
Lease-to-Purchase
As Neighborhood Renaissance was completing the final CLT homes, the housing and mortgage lending markets drastically changed and the foreclosure crisis began. Many low-income renters including our current tenants were being displaced due to landlord foreclosures. To address these conditions, we developed a Lease-to-Purchase program with a $375,000 grant from the Housing & Community Development Dept. of Palm Beach County.
Currently, this program includes 5 of the homes in the CLT and each is rented to the future owner with an option to purchase. All the participants are receiving ongoing case management and making progress in overcoming their barriers to homeownership.
In the future we look to expand this program to include additional homes in the Northwood-Pleasant City neighborhoods through our Northwood Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative.
Updates
• The Boys and Girls Club in Northwood now operates the Sunshine Food Co-OP. Each shopping trip costs $30.00 and includes 3 times more food than you could purchase at the supermarket. Take advantage of these savings! Call Christina Hewitt at 832-6776 ext. 104 for more information.
• Make sure to clean out your guttersfrom the FALL vegetation debris.
• Remember, lease payments are due on the first of each month, please mail or drop off payments to 510 24th St., Suite A, West Palm Beach, FL 33407
New Development in Northwood Village
Neighborhood Renaissance is developing Village Centre, a catalyst redevelopment project to be built in the heart of Northwood Village to help spur the area’s resurgence. Once completed, this anchor project will replace a vacant one acre site with a vibrant and green certified 5-story mixed-use building. Village Centre will include commercial and retail space on the ground floor and 60 affordable 2BR/2BA condominiums on the upper floors.
To learn more about this exciting new development coming to the heart of Northwood Village please visit www.villagecentre.us.
